2019 Lok Sabha election schedule is falsely shared as that of the upcoming Panchayat election in Uttar Pradesh - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
March 9, 2021
A post sharing a purported schedule of Uttar Pradesh elections is being shared on social media platforms. Through this article let’s fact-check the veracity of the schedule.
Claim: 2021 Uttar Pradesh Panchayat election schedule.
Fact: Except for the change in the month of polls, the rest of the schedule is the same as the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to parliament constituencies in Uttar Pradesh. In the post, the month of polls is mentioned as March whereas the actual elections took place in the month of April back in 2019. Panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh are due in April 2021. The process of preparation of electoral rolls is underway. This establishes that the 2019 Lok Sabha election schedule may have been shared widely by misconstruing it as the schedule for the upcoming panchayat election. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Search on the Election Commission of India website yielded us the schedule of 2019 Lok Sabha General Elections. In this schedule, the poll dates of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to Uttar Pradesh Parliament constituencies are the same as those in the post, except for the change in the month of polls. In the post, the month of polls is mentioned as March whereas the actual elections took place in the month of April back in 2019. Also, the segregation of 80 Parliament constituencies into phases in the post reflects the segregation in the 2019 election schedule. All these establish that the schedule of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is being falsely shared as the upcoming election schedule.
As of now, there are no elections to be held to assembly or Parliamentary constituencies in Uttar Pradesh. Further search on the State Election Commission website of Uttar Pradesh yielded us a circular dated 05 February 2021, which lists the timeline related to the preparation of electoral rolls states. As per this circular, the final publication of electoral rolls for the general public is on 15 March 2021. Taking a cue from this, Google search with relevant keywords led us to a news article which reported that the State Election Commission may release the panchayat election notification by 25 March 2021, and most likely, the first phase of elections may happen before 10 April 2021. From this, it can be inferred that the 2019 Lok Sabha election schedule may have been shared widely by misconstruing it as the schedule for the upcoming panchayat election.
In view of upcoming assembly general elections in five states and Uttar Pradesh panchayat elections due in April 2021, posts like these are being shared with misleading claims.
To sum it up, 2019 Lok Sabha election schedule is falsely shared as that of upcoming Panchayat election in Uttar Pradesh.